“Oh yes,” replied the girl vaguely. “Oh yes.”
They were walking up and down the hard gravel paths of the garden of Luc’s home in Aix; a faint film of frost lay over the water in the fountain basin, but the air was clear and bright, and through the damp rotting leaves on the flower-beds the first white and green of the snowdrops showed.
“Why has he been away so long?” asked Clémence again. “He was out of the plague in a few days.”
“He has been gaining strength,” returned the Marquis. “He was very, very ill. The doctor told me that it was one of God’s marvels that he has recovered at all. He has never been strong since the campaign in Bohemia.”
The girl glanced covertly at the noble, proud, and haggard face of her companion.
“There is something I want to ask you,” she said hurriedly.
“Yes, my child,” he answered gravely.
“Is he—will he be able to go to Madrid?”
A dark look clouded the old man’s eyes.
“Why do you want to know? Is it not enough that he is coming home to-morrow?” he replied.